Keeping Company with Yourself

Compassion means to suffer with. When a small child breaks an arm, you don't decide to feel for them. You hold their hand, you say something steadying, and it takes a little off the edge of it. You can't stop the pain. You stay near it.

Self-compassion is that, turned inward. Keeping company with yourself when you're the one suffering. Most of us were never taught to relate to ourselves at all, let alone kindly. We assume the kindness has to come from someone else.

The inner critic is suspicious of it. It is sure that if you go easy on yourself you'll go soft, cave to your worst tendencies. So it keeps the pressure on.

But self-compassion isn't self-pity, and it isn't a pint of ice cream. It isn't letting yourself off the hook or turning on other people. It's refusing to abandon yourself at the exact moment things hurt.

And it isn't earned. The kid with the broken arm didn't do anything to deserve your kindness. Neither do you. The idea that you have to be good enough first, that comfort is a reward for performing well, is the same contract the critic runs on. Compassion doesn't wait for you to measure up.

The parts of you that get shamed, told to shut up and get it together, don't leave when you attack them. Demanding they pull it together has never once worked, has it.

If being kind to yourself feels foreign, it's worth practicing on purpose. The loving-kindness meditation from the mindfulness tradition is one way in. You sit, and you turn a few plain wishes toward yourself. May you be happy. May you be safe. May you be well. For a lot of people this feels awkward at first, even irritating. That isn't a sign you're doing it wrong. It's a sign of how long you've gone without.